Inspiration for Today's World

Category: Poetry (Page 2 of 5)

We Wear the Mask

We wear the mask that grins and lies,
It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes
This debt we pay to human guile;
With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,
And mouth with myriad subtleties.

Why should the world be over-wise,
In counting all our tears and sighs?
Nay, let them only see us, while
We wear the mask.

We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries
To thee from tortured souls arise.
We sing, but oh the clay is vile
Beneath our feet, and long the mile;
But let the world dream otherwise,
We wear the mask!

~Paul Laurence Dunbar

Write It On Your Heart

Write it on your heart
that every day is the best day in the year.
He is rich who owns the day,
and no one owns the day
who allows it to be invaded with fret and anxiety.
Finish every day and be done with it.
You have done what you could.
Some blunders and absurdities, no doubt, crept in.
Forget them as soon as you can, tomorrow is a new day;
begin it well and serenely,
with too high a spirit to be cumbered with your old nonsense.
This new day is too dear, with its hopes and invitations,
to waste a moment on the yesterdays…

~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Worry

There is no need to worry about yesterday;
God has forgiven us for yesterday.
There is no need to worry about tomorrow;
God does not guarantee us an earthly tomorrow.
God only gives us today!
There is no need to worry about today;
For today, God gave us Christ.

~Robert Samson

Wings

Oh, to catch the winds of flight, and soar where eagles go,
To leave the woes of troubled souls, behind me far below,
I’d listen to the song of doves, and sail in endless flight,
Then chase the sun through cloudy paths, and play with stars at night.

The boundless heavens for my home, the breeze to lift me high,
To rise my mortal bonds and never truly die.
Knowing I had found the way, to trails where angels trod,
And when my wings could fly no more, I’d take the hand of God.

~C. David Hay

In memory of Conrad Gosheff
(September 8, 1933 to April 12, 2013)

William’s Psalm

Through the wind and rain
Through fire and lava
The Lord will never leave you.
Through earthquakes and floods
Through changing sea levels and burning ash
The Lord will never leave you.
If you love Him, He will bless you
and He will give you many things.

Who can stop the Lord?
Who can chase a cheetah across the plains of Africa?
The Lord, He can.
Who can stand on Mount Everest?
Who can face a rhinoceros?
The Lord.
The Lord can give you sheep and goats and
cows and ducks and chickens and dogs and cats.
The Lord can give you anything He wants to.

Who can stop the Lord?
Who can face an elephant?
Who is brave enough to face a lion?
The Lord.
Who’s as fast as a horse?
Who can catch a blue whale?
Who is brave enough to face a giant squid?
The Lord.
Just as Jesus died on the cross,
so the Lord has done so.
The Lord will never leave His people.
The Bible is His word.
The Lord is a good leader.

The Lord who loves you.
And He will not forsake His people.
The end.

This is a prayer from a seven year old boy named William Fariss living in West Africa. He had just watched his home burn to the ground and his mother overheard him praying. The original story can be found on a blog of the Pioneer Bible Translators. This was also reprinted in the book called “Fearless” by Max Lucado.

Watch

Watch your thoughts, for they become words.
Watch your words, for they become actions.
Watch your actions, for they become habits.
Watch your habits, for they become character.
Watch your character, for it becomes your destiny.

~Frank Outlaw

To All Parents

“I’ll lend you for a little while a child of mine” he said.

“For you to love while she’s alive and mourn when she is dead.”

“It may be six or seven years or twenty two or three, but will you ’til I call on her take care of her for me?”

“She’ll bring her charms to gladden you and if her stay is brief, you’ll
have her lovely memory as solace for your grief.”

“I can’t promise she will stay, as all from earth return, but there are
lessons taught down there I want this child to learn.”

“I’ve looked the wide world over and in my search for teachers true,
and from the throng that crowd life’s lanes, I have chosen you.”

“Now will you give her all the love – not think the labor vain, nor hate me when I come to call and take her back again?”

“I fancied that I heard them say, Dear Lord they will be done, for all
the joy this child shall bring, the risk of grief we’ll run.”

“We’ll shower her with tenderness and love her while we may, and for the happiness we have known, now in our hearts she’ll stay.”

~Author Unknown

The Star-Spangled Banner

Copy of Francis Scott Key’s original manuscript

O! say can you see, by the dawn’s early light,
What so proudly we hail’d at the twilight’s last gleaming,
Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight,
O’er the ramparts we watch’d, were so gallantly streaming?
And the rockets’ red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there —
O! say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O’er the land of the free, and the home of the brave?

On the shore, dimly seen through the mists of the deep,
Where the foe’s haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze o’er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning’s first beam,
In full glory reflected now shines on the stream —
‘Tis the star-spangled banner, O! long may it wave
O’er the land of the free, and the home of the brave.

And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havock of war and the battle’s confusion
A home and a country should leave us no more?
Their blood has wash’d out their foul foot-steps’ pollution,
No refuge could save the hireling and slave,
From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave;
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O’er the land of the free, and the home of the brave.

O! thus be it ever when freemen shall stand
Between their lov’d home, and the war’s desolation,
Blest with vict’ry and peace, may the heav’n-rescued land
Praise the power that hath made and preserv’d us a nation!
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto — ‘In God is our trust!’
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O’er the land of the free, and the home of the brave.

~Francis Scott Key

The Victor

If you think you are beaten, you are.
If you think you dare not, you don’t
If you like to win but think you can’t,
It’s almost a cinch you won’t.

If you think you’ll lose, you’re lost.
For out in the world we find
Success begins with a fellow’s will
It’s all in the state of mind.

If you think you are outclassed, you are.
You’ve got to think high to rise.
You’ve got to be sure of yourself before
You can ever win the prize.

Life’s battles don’t always go
To the stronger or faster man.
But sooner or later, the man who wins
Is the man who thinks he can.

~C.W. Longenecker

The Touch of the Master’s Hand

It was battered and scarred,
And the auctioneer thought it
hardly worth his while
To waste his time on the old violin,
but he held it up with a smile.

“What am I bid, good people”, he cried,
“Who starts the bidding for me?”
“One dollar, one dollar, Do I hear two?”
“Two dollars, who makes it three?”
“Three dollars once, three dollars twice, going for three,”

But, No,
From the room far back a gray bearded man
Came forward and picked up the bow,
Then wiping the dust from the old violin
And tightening up the strings,
He played a melody, pure and sweet
As sweet as the angel sings.

The music ceased and the auctioneer
With a voice that was quiet and low,
Said “What now am I bid for this old violin?”
As he held it aloft with its’ bow.

“One thousand, one thousand, Do I hear two?”
“Two thousand, Who makes it three?”
“Three thousand once, three thousand twice,
Going and gone”, said he.

The audience cheered,
But some of them cried,
“We just don’t understand.”
“What changed its’ worth?”
Swift came the reply.
“The Touch of the Masters Hand.”

And many a man with life out of tune
All battered with bourbon and gin
Is auctioned cheap to a thoughtless crowd
Much like that old violin

A mess of pottage, a glass of wine,
A game and he travels on.
He is going once, he is going twice,
He is going and almost gone.

But the Master comes,
And the foolish crowd never can quite understand,
The worth of a soul and the change that is wrought
By the Touch of the Masters’ Hand.

~Myra Brooks Welch

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